PRETTIEST PARIS PHOTOGRAPHY SPOTS

Paris; the beautiful city of love with its darling springtime blossoms and intricate architecture. A city filled to the brim with charming rues and scenic boulevards is naturally a photographer’s paradise. Now it may seem silly to visit these places just for the photo ops, but what you need to realise is that the way these places look on camera is only half as impressive as it will be in person! So be sure to not just take the photograph but also admire the space in all its glory in person. I encourage you to bring a pain au chocolat (which you can find the best of in my article here) and a coffee, sit, sip and memorise all the beautiful little details that might not be picked up on camera and enjoy everything these magical places have to offer! Here are the beautiful places I have discovered on my recent trip to Paris.

Palais Garnier

The beautiful Palais Garnier is on the top of my list because firstly, I am a huge Phantom of the Opera fan and this is the exact theatre where all those beautiful stories and songs are based on. Secondly, this extraordinary Opera house features one of the most beautiful hallI have ever laid eyes on ,even more breathtaking than Versailles in my eyes, which this hall was in fact modelled from. I kept walking back into this room just for another glimpse of it’s dazzling chandeliers and golden walls.

HOW TO FIND IT:
This hall is called the Grand Foyer and is situated just up one floor straight up the beautiful winding staircase (which is also a great photo spot but always filled with people so we didn’t attempt one!)

Entry: €7 – €11 per person

HOW TO GET THIS SHOT:
So this is the best view of the Grand Hall in all it’s dazzling glory! Stand nearer to one end so that there is less room for people to come into your shot and preferably the end where the windows are to your right side, then get your photographer to crouch down and make sure to capture mainly the ceiling. We didn’t manage to get the shot with nobody inside but it is nothing a little app called Meitu can’t fix!

HOW TO GET THIS SHOT:
Straight up the staircase and you will see these beautiful balconies that surround the room. It must have been the perfect spot to people watch and check out everyone in their Opera finery as they headed up and down the marble staircase. To get this shot, have your photographer pop him or herself in one of the side balconies, we chose the one immediately to your right after the stairs and have your subject stand in the opposite middle balcony. Wait till nobody is in your shot and then snap! Make sure to tilt up so you get maximum arch and ceiling features in your pic.

Notre Dame Paris

The Notre-Dame needs no introductions, especially to the insta-crowd! I stumbled upon this location last year and there were half as much people here, mainly strolling and enjoying the flowers instead of photographing! Now it is packed with photographers and grammers, but with good reason as these beautiful cherry blossoms set against the gothic architecture of the Notre Dame is a sight to see!

HOW TO FIND IT:
So this view with the many blossoms are not actually at the front of the Notre-Dame where the entrance (and where most tourists go to) is, it is in fact on the side of the building near the river and accessible through the gates of a garden complex. This is the exact location to enter into google to reach these flowers: 6 Parvis Notre-Dame – Pl. Jean-Paul II 75004 Paris, France. You’re welcome! 😀

Entry: Free

HOW TO GET THIS SHOT:
I stood right to the left of this park area (past the sand pit) and captured the Notre-dame from this angle, so that the trees come up on the side of the building as opposed to completely encircling it as you might see in some of the other photographs. Very easy shot, as there is guaranteed no people in this from below shot!

HOW TO GET THIS SHOT:
So this shot in the Notre-dame area was not quite so easy. For a start, it was filled with many many people walking around and all trying to take the same few images. This angle is from the right side of the park area and taken from a seat on the bench right next to this area. It doesn’t feature the Notre-Dame but you can get some amazing flower photos here which is always dreamy. This shot requires patience as there will be many people walking and relaxing, so just wait for your chance and then take the shot!

Musee des Arts et Metiers

This beautiful lesser known Museum is Paris’ industrial design museum and features some amazing examples of how transportation has evolved over the years. Cars, carriages, trains, planes…you name it. All this is housed in a beyond beautiful building, so keep an eye out for the amazing ceilings, walls and arches! The main attraction is naturally this hall with this amazing plane that is modelled after a flying squirrel / bat hybrid.

HOW TO FIND IT:
We actually got extremely lost trying to find this room, however that meant we got to experience and check out the other cool rooms (the chapel in particular was very beautiful architecturally as well as filled with gorgeous vintage carriages). So from reception, if you go straight through the gift shop area and turn right, walk all the way down the hallway with the train models, you will hit a room and once you turn right from there, voila! You will see the magnificent staircase view in the next shot. The chapel is in the same vein however instead of turning right after the gift shop, you turn left!

Entry: Under 26 Free if not €5 – €7.

HOW TO GET THIS SHOT:
Very very easy, situate yourself right in the middle of the room on the floor and have your subject climb the stairs. It isn’t a busy museum when we went around 10am so it is easy to get this shot with no one else in it. Make sure everything is pretty much symmetrical and straight and you got it!

HOW TO GET THIS SHOT:

Same place, just up the stairs! This one is a bit harder as it is a lot easier to for people to step in and out of your shot but when in doubt, just Meitu it out! This app literally saves my life. So to get this shot you sit at the edge of the staircase, I sat a bit closer off the edge as I wanted to get the checked tiles in my shot. There isn’t much room for the photographer so press your back against the wall and sit down to get this shot from below. I had to distort this image a little in a fish eye effect to get a bit more of the plane and background in.

Porte Saint-Denis

This was a beautiful little arch that we just happened to stumble upon whilst out at lunch at Frenchie to Go (which is amazing in it’s own way and included in my post about Foodie Haunts in Paris). It is called the Porte Saint-Denis and is one of the first of the four triumphal arches to be built in Paris, you might have heard of it’s more popular counterpart the Arc de Triomphe.

HOW TO FIND IT:
Type in Porte Saint-Denis in maps and voila! The view we took was we walked up the Rue Saint-Denis and took the photo right on the Boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle, so make sure you’re on this side as I can’t guarantee the views from the other!

HOW TO GET THIS SHOT:
This is also a relatively easy shot as it isn’t that well know, pop yourself onto the road which I think it’s a bike lane so it’s relatively quiet but please keep an eye out because you never know!! And once the traffic hits a green light, all the cars will drift off and you’ll be left with 10 seconds of empty street. That is your moment to capture this shot! From below as per usual with architecture so it has that epic elongated look and there you go!